Author: Sofia Karlsson Title: When Advertising and Journalism Meet Level: Bachelor of Journalism Location: University of Gothenburg Language: Swedish This bachelor thesis consists of a historical analysis of the collaborations between advertisers and editors, which led to the increasingly common phenomenon known as “sponsored articles”, or “advertorials”. From the first known printed ad in Sweden in 1645 to the present day, journalism and advertisement are shown to have been evolving mutually. This co-dependence between the two is demonstrated and scrutinized in this study to provide a more in depth understanding of the nature of their relationship. Through the presentation of historical facts, interviews, and background research, an attempt was made to provide both a historical and a current depiction of the state of affairs between Swedish magazines and advertisements within them. Furthermore, it was of interest to investigate the opinion of the professionals involved in the creation and publishing of said advertorials. Following this logic, the study also brushes on the attempts made to minimize advertisers’ control over the freedom of media, as well as possible ethical implications to journalism itself, which derive from these sponsored articles. The development of this thesis was underpinned by three main research questions. They were: How has the collaboration between editorial and advertisement come to be? How do the collaborations between editorial and advertisement look today? How do professionals view editorial collaborations today? Data collected suggests a few points of interest. The first one being that the extinction of the agency formerly responsible for controlling sponsored ads has shifted the responsibility of overseeing text commercial boundaries to editors. Another finding is that sponsored ads are directly related to the economy, seeing as most media depends on advertising money to function. Harsher economies make the number of newsreaders plummet, which draws advertisers away. In attempts to re-attract them, newspapers and magazines have begun utilizing new strategies, such as sponsored ads. Moreover, despite studies demonstrating how nearly 60 percent of newsreaders fail to see advertorials as ads, editors insist there is a clear distinction between ads and editorial products. Additionally, editors claim that because of the fact that the advertorials are not written by the editorial staff itself, they are not overstepping journalistic ethical boundaries.

This study has focused on the scholarships given by the two organizations Publicistklubben and Svenska journalistförbundet between 1999-2013. What type of journalism do they support and in which way? The media sector and the labour market for journalists have undergone dramatic changes since the mid-90s. The media companies have reduced their staff and more people are becoming freelances. It’s a shifting landscape and one of the aims for the study is to understand what role this two associations has taken and will take in the future. We found that women were getting almost 60% of the scholarships and 60% of the total sum but that some subjects are still gender marked. The study also showed that nearly 60% of the scholarships are given for university courses, internships and education.

This thesis is a comparative study of photo journalism in different platforms, online versus printed newspapers. The sample used consists of four Swedish newspapers: Gefle Dagblad, Norrköpings Tidningar, Nerikes Allehanda and Borås Tidning. The digital media landscape and the adaptation of news-matter to match different platforms have entailed both possibilities and limitations. One possibility is to offer a diversified photo content in different media outlets and to make use of the features of online platforms in terms of interactivity and the potential to include more material. The limitations constitute of a more formatted layout and a high work rate, increasing the individual workload for journalists. The purpose of this thesis is to research how the possibilities and limitations of multi-platform publishing have affected photo journalism. The photo content of 599 news articles, both online and printed versions, have been analyzed in order to compare the difference between the two platforms. Three main areas have been compared: space, variation and origin. The study shows that the mentioned areas of photo journalism, to some extent, differ between the two platforms – printed newspaper and online. However, the difference is small. The newspapers in this study do not vary the photo content on different platforms to a large extent, even though it could encourage people to continue to read articles both online and in the printed newspaper. The articles online contain more photos on average. At the same time, the share of articles containing a photo is higher on the online platform compared to the printed newspaper. However, one of four articles does not contain a photo at all, which is notable since previous research shows that the use of photos generally increase reading. The online articles in the sample only include two types of multimedia elements, slideshows and moving pictures. One or both of these elements are used in 20 percent of all articles in the sample. Again, this shows that the potential of the online platform is not fully utilized. Above all, we believe that photo journalism could benefit from a higher use of moving pictures since this element is best at conveying feelings.

The purpose of our study is to map changes in credibility within the editorial caused by the introduction of native advertising in the two Swedish newspapers Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet. The purpose of the study will be examined through three main questions: • Has the journalists credibility regarding their own news product changed because of the introduction of native advertising? • Does the journalists think that the readers credibility for the news product has changed because of the introduction of native advertising? • Does the journalists consider native advertising an important source of income for the news product to carry independent journalism? To answer the questions above we applied a quantitative study by using a web-¬‐ based questionnaire. The questionnaire was sent to 188 journalists employed by either Aftonbladet or Svenska Dagbladet. Out of those 188 journalists 31 answered the questionnaire. Considering the low frequency in answers the ambition with the results of the study is to only draw conclusions on the actual respondents. The results may however give a hint on how the credibility has changed amongst a broader population of journalists. Our results shows that journalists employed by Aftonbladet has a more critical view on the usage of native advertising compared to Svenska Dagbladet, where native advertising didn’t affect the majority of the respondents credibility negatively for their own product. The journalists from both newspapers widely agreed on that the readers credibility for respective newspaper may lower because of the appearance of native advertising. The results also show that differences in credibility vary depending on years as employed on the newspaper, profession and level of education. Journalists that have been working on a newspaper for more than four years are more critical towards native advertising. The credibility of the own news product tends to lower for reporters because of the usage of native advertising. That compared to the news editors, who’s credibility remains relatively unaffected. Respondents without any form of journalistic education tend to have a more negative attitude towards native advertising.

In this study, we examined the views of Swedish journalists on social media. The study focused on their attitudes and opinions regarding social media in relation to journalistic ideals and as a tool in the working procedure. There have been many quantitative studies focusing on how and how much journalists use social media. Our study contributes with examples of how journalists evaluate social media as a tool and how it has affected the ideals of the profession. We carried out a series of qualitative interviews with journalists that use social media to various degrees. The results have been summarized and analyzed in relation to theories on how technology is appropriated, how uses of technology changes through time, the professional ideals of journalism, the working procedure of the journalist, and newsworthiness. As the study has no notion of generalizing, the results are to be viewed as examples of opinions. Our results indicated that the journalists have appropriated social media as a tool. They appreciate the capacities that social media brings: as a news source and as a tool for communication, but they also show a certain ambivalence towards them. The use of social media in the work procedure can lead to a stressful environment, and the journalists see a development where news that produce a lot of traffic to the associated website are prioritized over more useful, important news. Our study points to a need for further studies in how the use of social media can negatively affect journalistic professional ideals.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Swedish foreign aid and diplomatic policies has any effect on the selection of foreign news in Swedish news media. We set out to study news concerning countries that experienced a change in their relation to the former Swedish government, which was in rule between 2006 and 2014. The countries we chose for this was Nicaragua, Laos and Senegal, where the Swedish embassies were closed in this period. For Nicaragua and Laos the aid was also reduced. Further, Bolivia, Cambodia and Mali were chosen since the Swedish government opened embassies there, as well as strengthening existing aid programs. Our theoretical points of departure have mainly been a set of different studies on news values; the science of what events becomes news. We have included both the broader theories concerning foreign journalism in general and more specifically those concerning the relationship between foreign journalism and foreign policies. We had two research questions: Has there been any change in the amount of news material from reaching us from these countries since the changes in Swedish representation took place? Has there been any change in the kind of information that reaches us from these countries? Our study was conducted as a quantitative content analysis in which we have studied the amount and nature of news material from our countries of choice in Swedish news media, before and after the changes in Swedish relations towards these countries took place. The results of the study shows that changes in Swedish relations did not seem to affect the presence of those countries in Swedish news media, nor how they were represented in the major Swedish newspapers. No clear patterns were found except that of the general decrease of news from the countries we chose for our study.Our conclusion was that any further studies on this subject would need to encompass a much greater amount of material and a greater knowledge of the editorial circumstances of each news media-object.